


Caring Can Be Hard

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 04:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: Gil is worried about Malcolm but, when isn’t he?





	Caring Can Be Hard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [schweinsty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/gifts).

> **Disclaimer** \- Not mine. 
> 
> **Author’s Note** – This was written for Schweinsty at comment_fic for the prompt   
Prodigal Son, Gil Arroyo + Malcolm Bright, This is how he got all his grey hair (No dialogue prompt)

XXX

Gil watched Dani steer Malcolm out of the precinct, helping to keep him upright as he stumbled along, jelly-limbed. He’d been foolish to give the boy alcohol knowing he’d been hospitalized earlier. Boy, hell Malcolm wasn’t a boy any more. He was a grown man, but Gil still saw him as the terrified young boy standing in the posh foyer of his home, clinging to him out of fear.

Gil poured himself more whiskey. He could use it. Maybe this was all a terrible mistake. He wondered what Jackie would think of him bringing Malcolm onboard to help with cases. She might be disappointed in him but on the other hand she might be happy that he was still looking after Malcolm. God knew Malcolm would have spiraled down, maybe even crashed and burned after the FBI canned him. Gil shut his eyes, his hand shaking a bit as the pain of not having Jackie around to talk this over with stabbed at him.

No, she wouldn’t be disappointed. She’d want him to take care of Malcolm and definitely would have been horrified to know that he nearly let the monster copycatting his father jab a needle full of poison into him. Had he wanted to die? It shook Gil to the core thinking that Malcolm might have been chasing death with both hands, but it wouldn’t surprise him.

Just look at earlier today, the way he put himself between Edrisa and a deadly snake. Again, he could have died and his fear of being locked into his dreams by the meds might make death look like the better option. He should have realized that alcohol wouldn’t have mixed with whatever the hospital had given his boy. He’d gotten the report of how Malcolm had fought past strong sedatives, waking in a panic, leaving the hospital against medical advice. 

Maybe he should have been the one to take Malcolm home, made sure he was able to relax before he strapped himself in for the night. He hated that it was still necessary and could only imagine what Malcolm’s mother went through. Sometimes she was a hard read for him, cold but concerned if he had to label her. Sending Dani was the right move. Malcolm wouldn’t have wanted JT to see him like this and surely wouldn’t want him to see the things that went on in his loft. On the other hand, he wanted his team to see behind Malcolm’s maniac shield, to understand him and how fragile but kind he really was. He wanted people to see Malcolm as something more than merely The Surgeon’s son. Sometimes his boy didn’t make it easy for others to see him as sane if broken.

He sighed. Poisoned needles, deadly snakes, a family annihilating poisoner, drug interactions, and it had been only two cases. He scrubbed a hand over his salt and pepper beard. No wonder he was going gray. Malcolm Bright was responsible for almost every last one of them. But Gil preferred him alive and gray-hair inducing over a world where Malcolm finally lost to his demons.


End file.
